At last the man at the centre of the Australian Water Holdings corruption investigation, lawyer Nick Di Girolamo, was there to explain that it was all a ghastly misunderstanding.

It wasn’t fraud just a little mix-up with names, the former chief executive of AWH told the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption.

“I’m not, I’m not apportioning blame, I’m, I’m, I’m . . . ." Di Girolamo assured counsel assisting ICAC, Geoffrey Watson SC. But when push came to shove in his battle with Watson, he was apportioning. It was all the accountants’ fault.

A month of hearings had been leading to this face off between Di Girolamo and Watson: the unutterable confronting the inexhaustible, the inexplicable meets the undeniable.

There is something in Di Girolamo’s appearance that extracts confidence from those he meets. Confidence and a lot of money – some $8 million from some of Sydney’s toughest investors including the family of former Labor powerbroker
Eddie Obeid
, on top of claims by Sydney Water that it was gouged up to $5 million in excess costs. Di Girolamo has a face that would be at home in a 1980s ad for Hush Puppies shoes. Other witnesses gesture with their hands. Di Girolamo’s eyebrows slink across his forehead with the languid grace of a feather boa.

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They’re almost orchestral. You get the feeling he could conduct an entire Mahler symphony with a sustained quizzical look.

He’s an agreeable fellow. Yes, salaries of directors had increased after he joined AWH in 2007 – only by about $2.5 million a year more for the three of them. But that was all decided by an AWH compliance committee meeting back in 2004, he said.

From 2008 to 2012 Di Girolamo, chairman John Rippon and executive director Bill McGregor-Fraser were paid $12.6 million, or $10.4 million more than they were worth, according to a review by AWH’s chief financial officer Robert Groom.

“I accept the process," Di Girolamo said of Groom’s valuation. But it was all set by the 2004 compliance committee, before his time. And he was of one mind with Watson about AWH charging hundreds of thousands of dollars to the state-owned Sydney Water for limousine hire, air fares, legal fees, hotel accommodation, donations to the Italian Chamber of Commerce and endless restaurant meals.

That was completely wrong, Di Girolamo said. But it wasn’t fraud.

In a bid to avoid drowning in accounts, ICAC has focused on invoices AWH charged to Sydney Water in November and December 2008.

As it happens that was when there was some errors made in the accounts. The company, which had originally been called Rouse Hill Infrastructure Consortium, had just changed its name to Australian Water Holdings, which some hapless accountants mixed up with a different company, Australian Water Pty Ltd. Oops.

Yes, Di Girolamo had approved a $300 wedding gift to an employee which was charged to Sydney Water but that was covered by “office incidentals" in the contract, he said.

And yes, a document headed “Sale of Shares" did look like he was selling half his stake in AWH to the Obeid family in November 2010 for $3 million, but he had had a word with Eddie Obeid jnr and they agreed it was only ever a loan.

Then there were the calls Di Girolamo made to politicians hundreds, lots of them, oodles, as Watson put it. Di Girolamo didn’t think there were hundreds of calls and his counsel Todd Alexis, SC, lumbered to his feet to announce, “I’ve got an objection to oodles."